CDC: More Kids Not Getting Recommended Vaccines

The percentage of U.S. children under 2 years old who haven’t received any recommended vaccinations quadrupled in the past 17 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Among children born in 2015, 1.3 percent had not received any of the recommended vaccinations, according to an analysis of 2017 data, the Washington Post reported.

That compares with 0.9 percent in 2011 and 0.3 percent of 19- to -35-month-olds in 2001.

If the same proportion of children born in 2016 haven’t received any vaccinations, about 100,000 children who are now less than 2 years old aren’t protected against 14 potentially serious vaccine-preventable diseases, Amanda Cohn, a pediatrician and CDC’s senior adviser for vaccines, told the Post.

Even though that number is only a small portion of the estimated 8 million children born in the last two years who are being vaccinated, the trend is worrying, public health officials say.

“This is something we’re definitely concerned about,” Cohn told the Post. “We know there are parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids . . . there may be parents who want to and aren’t able to” get their children immunized.